Winter Solstice Poem by Hilton Obenzinger

 Missing 

December 21, 2020
Winter Solstice 

An older woman in the parking lot of the supermarket was crying, her tears rolling down to her mask. People gathered around her, at a distance, and someone asked her if she was OK and why was she crying. She pointed to the Christmas decorations, lights flashing, a decorated tree, Rudolph's red nose, and all the rest. "I miss Christmas. All of this" – she pointed at the holiday lights – "don't make up for hugging my grandkids. I'm alone. The phone's not enough." And all of the people sighed. The sigh contained millions of regrets and losses tumbling out of their souls. They had come to console her, but they needed consolation themselves.

For a second everyone in the parking lot was swept up in shared sorrow, everyone stopped, remembering all that they were missing. And the silent roll-call of loss went like this:

Missing my senior-year trip to Spain. Missing my belly-dance class. Missing my job, missing my paycheck. Missing grandma, and grandma's missing me. Missing Zumba, missing Spanish class, missing teachers in the flesh. Missing God coming to visit me in huge crowds in Macy's. Missing my chorus, no Handel this year. Missing a big feast, missing food, missing sitting in a fancy restaurant or a greasy spoon. Missing going to a basketball game, missing the way people crowd into a movie house, sniffing each other before the film starts. Missing the tongue of flame that would sweep up a prophet. Missing my love, now gone, missing my brother, dead, and my friend, succumbed, missing grandpa dying alone. Missing latkes and chicken soup with friends at my house, missing the tamales my aunties would make. Missing sitting in a coffee shop and reading a book or scrolling down my laptop, watching everyone milling around. Missing the stand-up comedy club, and all the insult comics lambasting Christmas, missing the Nutcracker, missing the kitsch. Missing the way people are smashed together watching the fireworks on New Year's Eve. Missing the touch of my kids far away.

And then the brief interlude ended, and everyone dabbed their eyes, adjusted their masks, and someone told the grandma who was weeping that she wasn't alone, that all of us are missing a lot, and we never know how precious it could be to do all the normal things until they are taken away, but everything was going to be much better next year, we'll be free of the virus then, a madman will not be in the White House, we just have to hold out, stay steady, wait for the vaccine. That was a happy lie to make us forget our sorrows, and even though we all knew it, we were comforted, and we wished with all our hearts that it would all come true.